


Digressions in a Universe

by LilyChenAppreciationSociety



Category: Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:02:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6391351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyChenAppreciationSociety/pseuds/LilyChenAppreciationSociety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things I wrote on tumblr and want to save here, for posterity's sake and in case I want to look back at it later and chortle good naturedly. Featuring, strange AU's, speculative second person writing, and Blackthorn drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Second Person Parabatai Nonsense

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for witchlights on tumblr.com, based on somethings being said about, oh, six months ago. Originally posted here; (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/128750755494/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for witchlights on tumblr.com, based on somethings being said about, oh, six months ago. Originally posted here; (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/128750755494/)

You’re thirteen and your parents invite your cousin over every day in hopes that the two of you will hit it off. After all, you share more than blood, your mothers are parabatai and sisters, closer than close, perfect matches. She’s one year younger and absolutely insufferable but you sit quietly and hope the arranged meetings will end. 

You’ve known each other since childhood and there is a silent detente between the two of you that other people mistake for friendliness. Your mother looks so hopeful, you really can’t bring yourself to crush her dreams. The two of you take lessons together and train together and you ignore her cruelties and she ignores your weakness. 

A parabatai is supposed to be magical, in a good way, not the tainted way of warlocks, and you do want that bond desperately, but you assure yourself that you’ll make friends eventually and find someone right. 

 

It never happens and you can see the panic in your parents faces as you reach sixteen without a potential partner. They were both matched by fifteen, even if your father’s parabatai died young. Lots of your people don’t get pair bonded, but to your parents it seems like willingly giving up the opportunity to breathe. 

When you’re seventeen your mother pulls you into his office and talks about trust, the binding of souls, the benefits of putting your heart in someone else’s hands. In a panic you say you were thinking about asking your cousin but have yet to figure out a good way to do it. The outburst is ill thought out, you regret it the moment you see the gleam in your mother’s eyes. 

She ends up asking you, because she’s ambitious and the best fighters have parabatai, and your mother undoubtedly said something. You don’t really know how to refuse. Three months before your eighteenth birthday, late enough that people gossip, you swear loyalty to each other. The runes burn ever more than usual and you’re honestly surprised the ceremony even works. Parabatai are angelically destined, all the stories said so. Surely the Angel wouldn’t make such a terrible mistake. 

By the time you’re nineteen you’re considering becoming a Iron Sister just to get away from her. Her hurts hurt you, her life slithers into yours, making what was once peaceful chaotic. Everything feels louder and harsher when she’s around, the runes she marks sting and you find yourself digging your nails into her skin everytime she takes your hand. The only reason you hold hands is because the handful of other parabatai your age are all sickeningly touchy with one another. Besides, it makes your mother and aunt cluck delightedly, and you’ve already wrecked your life for familial approval. 

You’re on patrol in St Petersburg, where you’re assigned to the Institute for the traditional few years of work abroad. The rogue vampire you’re tracking sneaks up behind her and you should warn her, you should jump to protect her. You don’t, she survives anyways, and when you’re both standing over the vampire’s ashes she looks suspicious. 

Valentine and the Uprising are a bad story, a whisper from your parents, barely remembered chaos during your earliest childhood. When he comes back you’re twenty one and old enough to know what’s happening. You sit as far way from each other as possible on the bench during the Clave meetings and listen to the Consul drone. It’s honestly a relief when everything goes to hell. 

The wards are down and there are demons in the street and you and she take an alley with a bad case of Ravener demons. Three of them is enough for a whole team of seasoned fighters, not two sheltered young adults. It’s dangerous work and when you trip over her feet and barely miss being poisoned it might even be a mistake. It’s unlikely though and when the demons are dead you say so. The streets around you are full of chaos, but it’s quiet in your little dead end alley way, and her shrug is visible even in the nighttime gloom. 

Ever since you were little you were the quiet one, the easy one, the one who didn’t make a fuss. Look where that got you, totally above suspicion when she turns up among the casualties of the fight. You cry, and not just because it’s expected of you. The bond- fire forged and rune marked and promised to the Angel himself- tearing and shredding hurts but it’s a good pain, like ripping off a scab. The world seems duller and you revel in it.


	2. Baby Morgenstern AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based of of a post I made and subsequent headcanons of others in the subject of one of Sebastian's Italian lady friends getting knocked up. 
> 
> Originally annotated.   
> 'Waking up and finding a few thousand words of headcanons on a random post is always startling.
> 
> Shoutout to @siavahdainthemoon and @kitkatbooboo for taking a vague idea I had and running with it. You have a lot of brilliant ideas and I wanted to see what I could do with them in my own way. So, um, vaguely appreciative fanfic?'
> 
> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/138771667769)

Maria Saidi was a smart girl, everyone said so. That was usually the first thing they said about her, a three year old speaking like a child twice her age was always notable.

She could read and write and count to a hundred and her Nonno had been teaching her how to add and subtract while Mamma and Nonna were at work. Even though Mamma wanted her to be raised speaking Italian, he had been teaching her some Arabic too. Everyone agreed she was going to be quite bored when she entered school, and thought they said it with pride Maria could tell they were worried about her.

It wasn’t just being clever, it was how quiet she had been as a baby and how she saw things grownups didn’t sometimes. Shining things, and smiling people. Mamma had stopped taking her to the park outside their apartment building for a reason. 

They weren’t going to the park today, they were too far away from home. They had taken the bus downtown and Mamma was walking them down little side streets with the air of someone who knew where she was going. She was frowning. It was what Nonna called a disreputable part of town. 

She would be angry if she knew Mamma had taken her here. Nonna was angry about a lot of thing Mamma had done when she was younger, like going out partying and not attending to her studies and having Maria. 

"Where are we going?“ Maria asked, when they turned down another lane.

Mamma sighed. “Your Zia Lora got herself into trouble again, bimba. We’re just going to help her out.”

Maria mulled this over. Nonno and Nonna didn’t like Zia Lora. She was flighty and ran all around town doing silly things like Mamma had before she had Maria. Sometimes it seemed Mamma was tired of Zia Lora too, but she always helped her, because they had been friends for years and she had helped so much when Maria was a baby, before they had moved back in with Nonna and Nonno.

Mamma patted Maria’s hair and pointed to a closed club down a broad boulevard and next to a Supermercato. 

“Just in there, bimba.” she said. “I know you can be a good girl for a few minutes so we can get Lora." 

Maria wrinkled her nose at the idea that she would be trouble. She was always a good girl, or at least most of the time. 

The club wasn’t closed like Maria had thought, there were a few people milling around having drinks at the bar, and a few men putting wire and things on a stage. 

Mamma plopped Maria on a barstool and leaned over to talk to the man behind it. Maria looked around the over darkened room. Half the people hanging around the bar looked like drunkards, as Nonna would call them. Another few looked like they had just gotten off work, like Mamma had. And some of them looked like the invisible people.

Maria had learned how to tell which ones were the invisible people. They usually showed up near trees or in the city center, sometimes even in grand neighboring Venice, never in the high apartments or low slung stores Maria had grown up with. They looked pretty and came in colours most people didn’t. There was a little gaggle of them in the corner, playing with one of the alley cats. They looked more mishmash and raggedy than the pretty fairies of the flowers or the elegant city people. No one else was paying attention to them.

The bartender was talking to Mamma, telling her Zia Lora had drunk too much and then some girl had slipped something in her drink. One of the people had seen it and had her thrown out, but Zia Lora had been very sick all night and all day. Mamma nodded knowingly. "She has a low tolerance. You said she was in one of the backrooms?”

The bartender nodded. “Morning manager refused to toss her out. Fair enough, she could barely see straight and didn’t have any ID on her, but she’s been in our break room long enough. You can take her, but first, her bar bill.”

Mamma sighed and dug a wad of Euros out of her purse, then more at the bartenders’s request. “Behind me, then two lefts.” The man behind the counter said kindly. “It’s a bit of a mess, I wouldn’t take the girl. I’ll watch her if you want to go get your friend.“

Mamma hesitated, and Maria knew she was thinking about it. Nonna was always saying Mamma was too smart to have as little sense as she did. "Bimba, will you be okay out here for a few minutes?" 

Maria nodded. “Yes, Mamma. I can sit here and spin.” she twisted on the stool in demonstration. 

She wanted to watch the invisible people for a little longer. Mamma went into the back room and Maria turned to see the people better, only to find that they were watching her back.

Mamma didn’t like it when she waved to people who weren’t there. It made her mouth get all tight, a sure sign that she was worried someday Maria would be crazy.

But she could look, surely. The invisible people were watching her with interest, and a skinny girl the colour of orange roses and dappled sunlight walked over. 

“Hello, little girl.” she said softly, kneeling in front of the barstool. 

“Hello.” Maria replied. The bartender gave her a look that said he hadn’t signed on for imaginary friends when he took his brief babysitting job. 

“How can you see me, darling?” the girl asked, her voice faintly accented. 

Maria shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m supposed to talk to you. You’re a stranger.”

The girl turned back to her group. “Lorenzo!” she called. “Come over here.”

Lorenzo was pale and wearing a turtleneck, a sunhat, and gloves. He also looked distinctly displeased with the world. “What?”

“Tell me, she looks like one of the angel’s children, does she not?” the rose girl said. 

“She does.” Lorenzo admitted. “She smells like one of them too, almost. Angel blood and,” he sniffed, “Something sour.” 

Maria’s eyes were wide. She had never had to talk to the invisible people for long before, and they looked more dangerous than mermaids in the canals and flower fairies, more like the monsters who sometimes slunk through alleys and haunted nighttime places. Lorenzo had teeth like knives and the rose girl’s eyes were too soft, colour blending where there should have been white. 

The rest of the invisible people had come over too. “Strange of the angels to leave one of there own alone here.” one of them commented. 

Lorenzo hissed. “Yes, well, you’d think it strange of a vampire’s friends to keep him out past sunrise on a bar crawl, but here we are, stuck here.”

Maria sucked in a breath. The bartender picked her up and gave her a concerned look. “Bambina”, he said solemnly, as if he didn’t see the people right in front of him. “Your mother will be right back.”

“Drop it Lorenzo, we’ve already apologized. Besides, you’re scaring her.” the rose girl said. 

Maria buried her face in the big man’s shirt, desperate to get away from the prying eyes and inhuman features, and he shifted awkwardly. “There, there.” he said. 

“She’s very frightened.” one of them said. “Not a Shadowhunter then.”

“Poor little thing. Maybe the sight skipped a few generations, or one of the Nephilim brats forgot to keep it in his pants.” 

“She does smell very strange.” Lorenzo mused. 

“We should tell someone.” the rose girl suggested. “The Queen, perhaps?”

“Leave me out of it.”

“I think we should.”

“The Shadowhunters would consider it a breach of the truce if something happened to one of theirs. We’re not court, I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole.”

“We ought to tell someone.”

Musical voices overlapped and Maria tried to ignore it, until she heard her mother’s heavy step on the floor. “What happened?”

“Your girl must have taken a fright.” the bartender said, clearly relieved to be relieved of his burden. 

Mamma clucked and Maria felt slim strong and familiar arms reach out to take her. She peered uncertainly out. Zia Lora was leaning against the bar, looking like she had just been hit by a bus. The invisible people were still milling around, watching. 

Mamma must have seen Maria looking at them, because her grip tightened. “Lora, let’s go.” she said. “We’ll take a taxi back to your apartment.”

The rose girl whispered to her friends. When Mamma and Zia Lora and Maria left, she was following them.

 

……………………….

Maria tried to ignore it for the next few days. She didn’t like how Mamma looked at her when she went funny. She didn’t like Mamma to be worried. Zia Lora, who always talked to Maria like she was a grownup, had confided in her once that; “Syrine has always been worried, Maristela, that she hurt you, by being so wild when she was younger. That it’s her fault you’re such a special child, or that it’s bad. She’s too clever for her own good, all that book learning she’s been doing. You must be careful with your Mamma, sea star. Don’t let her worry too much.”

Maria tried, but it was hard to ignore the watchers, first it was just the rose girl, but then there were more, quiet men and women in armour with knives. They scared her, and when she was scared she wanted to lash out, to make the people scaring her go away. But she didn’t want to upset Mamma or Nonna or Nonno. They worked so hard, and they were so old. 

Nonno had lost his lower legs to sickness of the pancreas, which was in the stomach, before Maria was born, and so he stayed home with her while Nonna went to her office job and Mamma went to go work at her coffee shop. He was a quiet man, Nonno, and nice, but he didn’t abide by silliness, so Maria stayed quiet when they sat on the little balcony near the drying clothes, or when they stood by the door peering in. But she found reasons to bar the door when they got too close, and hid one of the kitchen knives in her dresser and didn’t give it back even when Nonna huffed and puffed and asked everyone if they knew where it had gone. 

Then the watchers went away, like they had never been there. Maria was able to relax, and stop feeling like she needed to run and hide. Mamma must have noticed she had been upset, because she started taking her to the library after work, and sometimes even the parks or central Padua which was bustling and always fun. Maria liked watching the people, and running in circles after pigeons and sitting on her mother’s lap on the bus ride homes and telling her jokes she had heard until she laughed, though sometimes Maria suspected she was laughing more Maria than the jokes.

When Mamma offered to take her to the botanical gardens, a special treat that meant a whole day in the sunshine and sometimes gelato afterwards, Maria thought it meant things were going back to normal. 

…………………

She had the girl and her mother brought up to one of her private rooms, where they could talk alone. She couldn’t afford any sloppiness on the subject, abducting a child of possible Shadowhunter blood could mean war at this juncture. A few on her most trusted knights had carried out the surveillance, and after the half faerie girl had brought the matter to the court’s attention, she’d been discreetly disposed of. The meeting would be attended only by one of her most trusted handmaidens. Secrecy and delicacy were both required with a matter such as this one.

At first glace the child didn’t look like much. She was small, with skin the colour of dry leaves, and brown hair that curled slightly, and hazel eyes, grass green peering out from behind fawn gold. But there was something to her jawline and the curve of her small lips, that brought to mind the Seelie Queen’s dead lover, and something about the set of her eyes and slight size reminded her of Clarissa Fairchild. 

She was wearing little black boots and her hair was in two braids, but that was where anything Shadowhunter about her ended. Purple leggings with blue polka dots, a fluffy blue skirt, and a shirt that sparkled, all cheap, and all rumpled. 

Her mother was even less impressive, dark hair, a strong profile in a face that suggest North African origins, tired eyes, and the smell of sugar and caffeine. Pretty enough, perhaps even beautiful, but with a weariness about her that betrayed her mundanity and mortality. She looked utterly confused, terrified even, and she was clutching her child to her tightly.

A knight gently pushed the pair into a chair, bowed and left. The woman didn’t move, but she seemed willing to try to bolt at any moment, foolish as the attempt might have been. 

“Where are?” she demanded, looking the Seelie Queen up and down fearfully. “Who are you?”

The Queen smiled graciously. “A better question might be who are you?”

The woman looked about to answer for a moment, then she shut her mouth firmly. “I don’t think I should be talking to you.” she said. She was smarter than she looked then. 

The child in her arms was breathing heavily and her eyes were glistening with tears, but she was looking around with shocking intelligence for her age. 

The Seelie Queen decided to try a different tack, negotiation. She could get the better of any lost mundane. “I’m sorry you feel that way. Rest assured, I have no wish to harm you or your daughter. I want information.”

Outrage won out over wise silence. “Your…. people, grabbed us from the park, they brought us underground, and now you’re, they’re….” the woman gestured to the room around her, all gossamer and light, with a eloquently communicated frustration that was all Italian. 

“I think you’re daughter knows what we are.” the Seelie Queen said kindly. “She’s been watching us for weeks, as we’ve been watching you.”

Helpless fear and confusion were briefly replaced on the woman’s face by a shock and understanding, then denial took their place. “I don’t believe you.” the woman declared. 

The child looked up, “Mamma.” she said softly. 

“Shush, Maria. Please. This is all a hallucination. Lora convinced me to go out for drinks after work and something horrible happened again. Something happened to the water lines, I wouldn’t be surprised given how awful the plumbing is. Something.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” the Queen said politely. “But I I am but a hallucination, there can be no harm in talking to me, can there?”

She seemed to be mulling this over, and while she did the Queen pulled her trump card, the one play that worked on every mortal, because every mortal was too curious for their own good.

“How about a deal, an answer for an answer. I can ask you a question and then you can, and we both promise to be honest?”

As always, human stupidity won out. The woman nodded, slowly. 

The Seelie Queen smiled and waved for her handmaiden to our drinks. The woman looked at them suspiciously, and little Maria shook her head vigorously, the drinks were removed. Ah, well, that was one trap lost. But there were many more. 

“Your daughter.” the Seelie Queen said languorously. “How old is she?”

“Three years and eight months.” the woman said impatiently. “My turn. Where are we?”

“Under the Hill.” the Queen answered promptly. “Now me, who was her father?”

The woman spluttered. “That’s not an answer!”

The Seelie Queen raised an eyebrow. “I think you’ll find it is. You simply have to ask better questions. Now, my answer, if you will.” 

Something hardened on the woman’s face and she drew her child in closer to her chest. “He father was a man.” she said. “I never knew his name. My turn, who are you?”

“The queen. What was he like, this man of your?”

She shrugged. “Young, pale, probably Swiss. He spoke with a very Roman accent. Queen of what?”

“Queen of Under the Hill.” 

The woman looked about to snap, but somehow kept her composure. Humans, always so easily upset. “And your question, your highness?”

The Seelie Queen took a sip of her own drink, put her cup down, adjusted her dress. “What colour were the man’s eyes?”

“Black. What would I have to do,” the woman said slowly. “To make you let us go?”

“It depends on the answers you give to my questions. Maria’s father, where did you meet him?”

“Venice.” she spat. “I was eighteen and stupid and more interested in pretty boys and drinking than the university my parents nearly bankrupted themselves to send me too. I’m not answering anymore questions.” the woman said, squaring her shoulders.

The Seelie Queen sighed. “Have it your way. Bring me the girl.” she ordered her handmaiden, a silent elven woman who was stronger than she looked. It took a while and the assistance of two knights to wrest the child away from her mother, and then a few minutes before she stopped kicking and could be delivered into the Seelie Queen’s arms. 

She rarely held children. She’d never had any of her own, had never had any interest. Children grew up and became dangerous, in her opinion. But Sebastian Morgenstern’s child, that could be worth something, dangerous or not. 

Little Maria was heavy, bony elbows held out defensively, and her hazel eyes were accusing. 

“Greetings, child.” the Seelie Queen said politely, but the infant looked away, refused to meet her gaze. She tutted and pulled the child’s face back to hers. “Manners, if you will. You’ve seen strange things ever since you were a baby, haven’t you?”

Still the child refused to answer, kept looking back to her mother fearfully. 

“The sooner you talk to me the sooner I can give you back to your poor bereft dame.” the Seelie Queen admonished. “Now, you’ve known you were special for a while, haven’t you?”

The girl sniffled messily, snot and tears mixing on her face. “I see things.” she admitted. “Mermaids and beautiful people. And terrible people too. Monsters, sometimes.”

“And you’re so much smarter than everyone else your age.” the Seelie Queen prompted. “Stronger too, I would guess.”

Maria nodded. 

“Just like your father then.” the Seelie Queen crooned. “You’re only going to get stronger as you grow up, you know. Blood sees true, and yours is quite special. Do you know who your father was?”

The child looked back to the woman, still held tightly by faerie knights, before shaking her head no. 

“Oh, he was a warrior, half angel and half demon.” the Queen confided, pitching her voice low. “That practically makes you one of us. He would have torn the world to pieces, I think. It would have been marvelous to watch. Mayhaps you’ll finish his job, or do something even better. You just need the right guidance.”

“I want my Mamma.” the girl whispered. 

The Seelie Queen smiled and motioned for the child to be taken away. “And you’ll have her. You’ll have everything you could wish for little one. And in return you’ll be of my court and do my will.”

“We want to go home.” the woman said, once she had her baby pressed against her again.

The Queen smiled patiently. "You are home.”


	3. Late Night Evil Blackthorns (Or Are They?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre Lady Midnight Blackthorn thoughts that turned into a fic around one in the morning. Pretentious and vaguely confusing. 
> 
> "Okay, I did it. I don’t know how long it is, and it took like an hour, but what is an hour really. Introducing, probably my magnus opum tbh, The Blackthorns Wreck The Clave, Get Slightly Eldritch In The Process. Written by me and my buddies Sleep Deprivation and Unecessary SAT Words and Weird Auto Correct (I think I got rid of the bad ones, but still.) I’m going to try to put a read more in too, let’s see how that works. Edit: Man, this is absolutely unintelligible in retrospect. I’m leaving it as a signpost of my sins."
> 
> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/139637502279/)

They’re chaos in a bottle, the Blackthorn children.

Except they’re not children anymore, almost all of them are grown, and chaos would suggest they don’t know what they’re doing, when they absolutely do.

 

Helen is the oldest, the ring leader, some say, while others merely call her the peacekeeper, the gentle guiding hand. She’s lovely in an icy way, as beautiful as her faerie mother and so much more precious for her mortality, long crystallized in the arctic snow, but still visible like a corpse of something that once was. And she can lie, all the Blackthorns can, all of them just human enough to speak falsehoods while inhumanity thrums through their veins.

They say she loved once, loved so deeply even the cold fey part of her was warmed. They say she hasn’t loved since, or sometimes that her love is still with her, badly hurt but still there, her injuries Helen’s motivation to gouge the Clave’s eyes out.

Dead or alive or hidden in Faerie, no one has seen Aline Penhallow in a long time.

She’s the sort of warrior who makes even prodigies worry, not particularly gifted but calculating in the extreme, and sharp as a knife. They say she sees like a cat and hears like a bat and that her gift with wards is unlike any other, that magic flows from her fingertips as if she spent centuries studying it.

They say it is a gift the Clave gave her, they say it is a gift she is giving back, tenfold.

 

Then there is Mark, a long golden shadow, light as a candle flame and dangerous as a forge fire. The most faerie of them, though not the farthest from humanity, not quite.

His eyes gleam in the night where he once rode, but a hunter rides with others. He’s a poacher, an assassin, no longer a desperate lost child but not quite a desperate lost adult.

They say Faerie does things to the head of even the the most true blooded Shadowhunter, he really can’t be blamed for having lost his.

But he drapes over the arm of the young Unseelie who would be king, and that, they say, is of his own free will.

His sister is his softness, he is the light to her northern chill, the wildness to her sorrow. And maybe after a battle they all sit together, and then they are content. Nobody’s really lived long enough to confirm it.

 

 

The third is not a warrior, his heart is not made for battle. He shields and plots and plans and sacrifices.

They say it nearly ate him up, deals with demons often do.

He’s a touch stone, a base, the center to the storm that is all that’s left of the once noble Blackthorns. (They say there’s an uncle tucked away somewhere in the Spiral Labyrinth, safe and secure. The warlocks will neither confirm or deny.)

Runes, angelic and otherwise, are writ like multicolored ink over his skin. It takes a lot to sustain a family until they can snap back and make themselves the aggressors. And perhaps he owes a lot, perhaps he owes his soul, but if so, no demon can ever collect because it’s been knotted up too tightly with another.

 

She is not their blood, but foster ties mean much to Shadowhunters and the Fair Folk alike. Besides, she bears their name now, wears it like a badge of blasphemy. Emma Blackthorn Carstairs.

Fire tempers but without proper cooling and treatment even the finest steel can break, and Raziel, she has shattered into a warrior of hell, or somewhere very close.

A million slights, a million debts, years of anger, it festers. She is nothing more than the angel’s blood, a million rune scars show that, and nobody could accuse her of being anything less. Emma is perfect, the perfect Shadowhunter, kissing her parabatai and embracing his half breed siblings as she rages against the law.

It would be funny if they weren’t so good at it.

They say a rogue Silent Brother blessed her with safety, they say the Angel’s messenger gave her gifts. They say you cannot fight your own best born daughter.

 

 

The twins are like two sides of a coin, in that it’s very difficult to see both of them at once. If Tiberius is in front of you, Livia is behind, and vice versa.

They travel together, sometimes, inseparable in the mundane world as if they shared a heart. No one knows what they gather, in far flung corners of the globe, and no one knows what they research that makes their pursuers go mad.

It is imperative, of course, to discover what demons they have found at the bottom of the sea, but they are hard to catch and wily, because sometimes they are apart.

Livia fights with her brothers and sisters and whatever faction the Blackthorns care to align themselves with, hour to hour, day to day. She looks like a half a statue, a slim sweet faced woman who fights with delicate sabers and rarely moves first, unless you touch something of hers. Then people find she can move quite fast indeed.

The charitable say her eyes look like aged copper, the mourning say they look like poison, the sort that tips her every arrow and knife, all noxious concoctions of her twin’s

They can kill together without ever seeing a fight side by side.

He is a genius, you know, but a broken, pitiable one. Not that our pity seems to impede him much. He watches and learns, and they say he studies not a single topic but the world. He has a warlock cat, and ghosts of madmen by his side, and they say they pick our world apart, shredding it like an old sweater, until the demons can find holes to burrow in and hide.

Half a warlock himself, they say, and speak of experiments that warp and bend the soul, magic that scrapes at the body until it falls in pieces into a shape inhuman.

Pretty as one of the elfin folk, with eyes like the mist and hands as cold. And those younger than him sit at his table in their sanctuary and magic curls around them.

Poor things, lost already.

 

 

Penultimate, the dreamer, the gentle heart. Drusilla, soft and lovely and still a child, really, though not by much. They say she walks through blood and doesn’t flinch, follows her sisters like a squire and watches their bloody handiwork.

They say she sits among the faeries and doesn’t shudder, for why should she fear that which she sees in her flesh and bones?

Drusilla knows stories, every single one. Drusilla the dreamer, who weaves visions of moonbeams and looks into others hearts.

Or perhaps she’s very clever, and young and sweet and quiet. Perhaps she merely listens to every court and coven and campfire they wander through. Perhaps she makes very good guesses, a little spy in the making, good at tying the narrative out of all the little threads.

Perhaps that’s more boring than the stolen child, warped by magic and lost beyond our reach.

They say her eyes are too soft sometimes, that she’s eaten the fruit of Faerie and begged the gift of Thomas the Rhymer off her brother's lover, that only by her family ties does she venture back to the world of men, to wade through blood, a page of the long war.

 

 

There is always a baby, and the baby is easy to make the victim. Octavian, rightly named and born in the shadow of death, does not wish to be one.

He’s sweet, innocent, even. His face and demeanor seemingly unmarred by Faerie’s charms and demon’s deals.

He’s gentle, his family’s darling, the last protected corner of life that was.

They say he’s the sort to help baby birds, that in his presence everything else softens.

They say he hates the Clave like the insomniac hates the slow creep of sunrise, because he was raised to be their battle cry. The infant orphaned and torn away from family again and again, the boy willing to rail on cue against the Law. Their living martyr. 

He’s there sometimes when they’re all together, cradled against scarred and magic worn bodies, a sword at his side like a good Shadowhunter boy, happily watching his people collapse.

Like he thinks we deserve it.


	4. Pre Lady Midnight Drabble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says!
> 
> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/140424277364/)

Aline kisses her one morning and her mouth is quivering. Helen pulls her wife into a chair and hold her hand. It’s been three years to the the day and it hurts. She’d cried when the sun had come up, silent tears as Aline, not a morning person by any stretch slumbered. 

“I’m sorry.” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

Helen kisses her again, feeling like an awkward teenager. Their mouths don’t fit together well over tears. 

“So am I.” she says. “But it’s not your fault. It’s neither of ours.”

“I’m glad you know that.” Aline says, as if she can hear Helen’s pressed down mental whisper, that it’s technically her fault, her birth, her mother.

Aline’s mother is perfectly respectable and has done nothing but try to help. Nobody could think of Aline as the problem, as they weight in their lives.

“It’s neither of our faults.” Helen repeats and closes her book. She can’t find the motivation to read about the similarities between some wards and glamours. It feels pointless. 

“Let’s go back to bed.”

 

“We protect.” Diana says. It’s what the Codex says. it’s the right thing to say. Emma holds protection, guarding, her fighting spirit, close. Of all the things Shadowhunters have, this is what she trusts. 

 

The Wild Hunt was not exactly a monolith but it was roundly agreed by them that Shadowhunters were awful. Opinions ranged from mild distaste, to fear, to scorn, to seething simmering hatred, but no body liked them. 

Mark learned fast to keep his mouth shut, or at least not pick fights. If he was quiet he tended to get pity more than antagonism, poor Mark, had to grow up with those awful Shadowhunters. 

The thing was, as he felt his shoulders grow broad and his lanky frame solidify, as he was forced to acknowledge that he was growing and growing, time was passing and there was no rescue in sight, a dark angry part of him agreed with them. 

 

Being a Nephilim isn’t something you can change, Diana feels. For better or for worse you’re stuck with it. They can strip your runes, cut you off, but she knows the soul is hard to harm. You could just as well cut out your own heart. 

It isn’t good or bad, it just is. Angel’s blood is stickier than tar, more staining than oil paint, and it doesn’t leave a person.

You can’t change being Nephilim, but being a Shadowhunter is an entirely different matter. 

 

Cristina finds the LA Institute doesn’t have much of a chapel. That’s fine by her. She misses family services sometimes, a time for all of them to think and pray together, but faith is about the singular soul. 

The garden is lovely, now that it’s been fixed up a little, and she sits and holds her medallion in her hand, remembers her lessons, remembers their mandate. It’s all so messy sometimes, the bureaucracy and blood. 

The garden in the morning, watching the sunrise and praying, a moment of quiet, of reflection, until she can feel her blood in every inch of her, like the beat of a drum. That’s enough. 

 

Malcolm pats Arthur’s back soothingly, little circular motions, long fingers pressing into a bony back. They’re both all bones. If you brought young Tiberius in, together they could make Catarina deeply distressed. 

She’d hurt, seeing Arthur. It seems like he’s falling to pieces and Catarina hates things she can’t heal. That’s why, Malcolm remind himself, they mustn’t tell. Catarina would get upset. 

Oh, and the Clave, they might be a little tetchy too.

Arthur has his head tucked into his arms, lying on the desk like a puddle of a man. Malcom pats his head, and gets briefly distracted by the increasing grey in the man’s hair. They’ll match at this rate, and then they can switch clothes and get into wacky hijinks. 

“They’re everywhere.” Arthur moans. 

Malcolm nods. “People often are.” 

Arthur lifts his head a little, until Malcolm can see one shadowed eye. “No.” he says dismissively. “The monsters.”

“I know they hurt your family so.” Malcolm agrees, remembering all, like, twenty of the little Blackthorns downstairs, and how now they’re all dull bronze where once there was gold among them. He remembers Andrew too, who always had tea and a nice book, and who’s dead now. Shadowhunters die so easily, it’s always sad. “They took your brother and his children.”

“Monsters took my brother.”Arthur says, muffled by his shirt sleeve. “Mark and Helen were taken by something else entirely,”

“I’m glad you’re refraining from calling people monsters.” Malcolm agrees, pulling a sleeping draught out of his bag. “It’s terribly bad manners. I’m never happy when people call me a monster.”

Don’t tell Catarina, he remembers when Arthur is asleep. And don’t tell the Shadowhunters, they’re so highstrung. 

 

They save people, Emma thinks proudly sometimes, when she’s gone on a good mission. Since she became old enough to go out she’s lost count of the number of lives she’s saved directly. There are so many bodies that won’t be washing up on beaches, and that’s as gratifying as the idea of revenge. 

There were two lost toddlers, rescued from a rogue young warlock. A family saved from demons. This is what being a Shadowhunter is about. 

 

Julian watches Tavvy sleep, cuddling Aline, the giant rabbit named after his sister in law who he can’t remember ever meeting. He does Uncle Arthur’s paperwork, cleans the kitchen, feels Emma away on patrol with Livvy and Ty. It’s empty and silent as the grave and the air is a pressure on him. The biting ache in his shoulder where he drove hooks into his skin and tied himself to Emma, the empty house, the bloody clothes that would be on the floor in the morning, that’s what being a Shadowhunter is about.


	5. Anselm and Lily Are Coming For YOU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justice for Anselm, 2k16. 
> 
> Originally notated.   
> (I lost three drafts of this but I needed to do at least some Anselm and Lily for this very special day. So, just a snippet of the great quest for justice.)
> 
> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/141516293279)

It had been two days in the holy ground lined cell under the Gard and Anselm was getting bored. Anger and fear and worry for his clan, those were all right, but the were hard emotions to maintain over a lengthy period of time in a dark room.

He had expected a trial, or perhaps just a quick execution as would have been done when Anselm himself was young and righteously enforcing the Angel’s laws. But not a soul had spoken to him since the Inquisitor’s muscled thugs had tossed him into the room. Even the deliveries of, frankly low quality, blood had been silent.

Anselm wanted to wring Arthur Blackthorn’s throat. He wanted to rage, but not even replaying the conversation he had overheard through the Sanctuary door could make him feel fury. Revenge had taken a backseat to the need for completion that vampires so often felt. Justice could wait, he would content himself with any kind of forward motion, anything that assuaged his gnawing fear that he would be left to rot in the dark, his clan would fall into chaos, his dogs would be abandoned, and the truth of Arthur’s treachery would never come out.

He had never been particularly fond of Lily Chen, but Anselm suddenly considered her one of his best of friends when she walked into his tomb on the third day. After all, he now had a vacancy in the friend department to fill, did he not?

“Ms. Chen.” Anselm said, trying to look professional in dust covered Victorian loungewear. Wine and Cicero had always been a dress down sort of event. He hadn’t expected the most base of treacherous from gentle clever Arthur after all. “I am innocent.”

“That’s Representative Chen to you.” she said, looking with distaste at the edges of the room where consecrated earth dusted the baseboards, and then at the threshold at her feet. “Anselm Nightshade. We need to talk.”

***  
A young Shadowhunter let Anselm out and walked the two of them to a windowless room deep in the Gard. Lily shot down any attempts at asking questions with a shake of the head, clearly determined not to say a word further until they were alone together.

Anselm felt like a child tripping after an adult, though the young woman in front of him was several years his junior in appearance, and several centuries in age. Even Lily Chen’s accompaniment, an easy going young vampire with an amiable expression, seemed more at ease than Anselm felt.

“Stay out here, Elliott.” Lily ordered to her friend, disregarding the young Shadowhunter entirely.

“I can’t leave a prisoner alone.” the Nephilim child interjected, with less deference than would normally be shown to a Council member. Anselm felt the burning anger of his early incarceration rise again and his teeth slide out. He was not in a mood to see a competent if at times obnoxious young vampire condescended by a stripling boy.

“I’m more capable of subduing one of my own than you are.” Lily said firmly. “And we’re in the center of Shadowhunter power, as I have so often been told. But if you’re afraid of an old eccentric, feel free to wait by the door.” She flashed her fangs in what might be interpreted as a smile by the very stupid.

Anselm and Lily were left alone.

Anselm crossed his arms, still miffed at the ‘old eccentric’, and kept them crossed even as he took a seat.

“I was framed.” he declared to Lily’s impassive face.

“I know, Nightshade.”

Surprise gave into upset. “Then why am I still imprisoned? This is a travesty, a miscarriage of justice!”

Lily shrugged. “Are you really that shocked? These are Shadowhunters were talking about.”

“Send lex, dura lex.” Anselm muttered, “A perfectly good phrase painfully overused. I thought that was your job, Representative Chen, ensuring that this did not happen?”

Lily Chen shrugged again. “I’m but one woman. The other woman was all ready to start a fight for you, but I convinced her to be subtle.” Her sigh could have matched a war veteran’s, and her hard distant gaze suggested she was reminiscing on subtlety, and the consequences there of. “It’s a tough situation, Nightshade.”

Anselm was tired. He’d gone out for a drink and a discussion and ended up arrested. He had seen terrible things before, but they had never happened to him quite so directly or suddenly. And he was not the sort of man who wanted to die, or he would have killed himself like a good vampirized Shadowhunter years ago.

“Then let me make it easier. I will not let this stand.” said Anselm through clenched teeth, his canines digging into his gums. “I will not go easily to my grave again, Lily Chen.”

“Good, because we weren’t going to let you.” Lily raised an eyebrow delicately. “I said it was tough, not unworkable. Maia Roberts and I talked to Magnus,” her face twisted strangely, “And to your clan. We can make the Clave launch a full investigation, they know they can’t afford to lose Downworlder support now. More importantly, we might have another way out for you. But we’ll have to be careful and it could take some time.”

Anselm’s brow furrowed. “Shadowhunter trials never take more than a month, and that’s for their own.” They were very much for brevity the Nephilim. Their lives were short and so were those of their prisoners.

Lily tossed her streaked hair over her shoulder. “You are a unique case, Nightshade, and you have support on the Council. We can probably get your freedom, at the least.”

Anselm considered it, a chance to make things as they were, a chance to erase everything. Except, Arthur’s voice, so clear, as if denouncing Anselm have him the strength nothing else could, Arthur’s face, later so clearly guilty, and yet frozen as if he couldn’t move to set things to right. The Inquisitor’s stern face, and the Nephilim’s own words.

“I want justice.” said Anselm Nightshade. “Sed lex, dura lex.”

“Difficult.” Lily commented, and Anselm, remembering her ways, waited a minute for her to finish.

After a second Lily smiled, fangs glimmering. “But not impossible. We’ll see what we can do.”


	6. Sebastian and the Seelie Queen Are My Kind of Terrible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written about a month ago for Lady Midnight Week
> 
> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/140607292819)

At some point on the journey the boy had stopped struggling, but as soon as he spotted the Seelie Queen he started again. All art had gone from him, he no longer tried to subtly work out of his bonds, but instead contented himself wildly throwing his weight around, silent even for a gagged man.

It was so pathetic, Sebastian was nearly ashamed to admit the boy was technically one of his peers, insofar as he had any.

The Seelie Queen was sitting like a princess in a fairy tale, her hair streaming down her back and her dress a demure pink. Sebastian guessed she had been treating with the Unseelie, the two courts did love to play up their reputations when they met.

“A present for you, Queen of Air.” Sebastian said, smiling at her. She took in the blond boy, dressed darkly and lightly runed, and he could see the cogs in her mind turning.

The Blackthorn boy’s head was bowed enough to cover his ears, though he was looking around frantically, and he must have made a strange sight, the single untouched Shadowhunter among a copse of Endarkened. Sebastian was prepared to give her a little more time to admit confusion, but her eyes smiled and she sighed with delight.

“I know that face, I’ve seen it before among my courtiers.” she said, slipping down from her seat. “Let me see his features.” she ordered and the nearest Endarkened, the older man from the Los Angeles Institute, yanked his head back.

The boy flinched away from his touch and looked stubbornly at a point just to the Queen’s left.

“One of Nerissa’s sweet babes.” The Queen said with satisfaction, then, looking at the man holding the boy down, “And her lover too. Are you not Andrew Blackthorn?”

“I am.” the Endarkened said.

“I am, my queen.” Meliorn corrected. He was looking at Mark Blackthorn with something approaching pity.

“I daren’t use the Infernal Cup on him.” Sebastian said. “So I thought you might have some use of him.”

“You are kind to think of me.” The Queen trilled in a voice like thin pane ice. “The Shadowhunters did not realize what they had on their hands. If I thought I could get away with it I would not have let Nerissa take them when they were young.”

“One of your vassals?”

“One of my ladies. She fell in love with a Shadowhunter and he loved her back, naive young things that they were. They were sickeningly sweet, but I let it stand for it upset the Shadowhunters so. But she sent him away after an accident, too in love to think straight, then left their children above as well.”

Sebastian’s lip curled, mirroring the Queen’s. “Romantics. I suppose she was very beautiful?” He asked the shade of Andrew Blackthorn.

“Like an autumn sun.” Andrew replied, proving definitively that he had spent time among the Seelie, though his smile was less refined.

Sebastian laughed. “I don’t suppose she wants to see her son?”

The Queen waved a thin boned hand. “If she does she must find another way, for she is no longer under my power. She’s dead. Not by my hand,” she added at Sebastian’s questioning look. “Or my order. She died of grief, if you could imagine.”

That somehow surprised Sebastian more than a murder. He couldn’t comprehend one of the sidhe burning out so easily.

“They say the fae are taken to flights of fancy. Our realm is a little too heady even for some born into it. And love makes fools of young girls and ancients alike. Ridiculous, but I suppose if you must do something it’s better not to do it halfway.” the Queen said as if echoing his thoughts.

Mark Blackthorn had been watching his father with wide eyes as the story was told, fear and hate half forgotten.

Andrew Blackthorn only smiled.

The Queen touched a long finger to the Blackthorn boy’s eyelid, and he jerked back, returned to his unfortunate reality.

“There were two of them.” the Queen murmured. “Nerissa hated bringing them among us but I know that much. Did you perchance see a sister?”

“There was a blonde girl, but not of your blood, or his if I am to judge.” Sebastian said. Mark Blackthorn scowled under the gag, but it was anger lined with fear.

“Mmmhm. I suppose it’s for the better, the boy is more useful. I must thank you.” The Queen said, still examining Mark Blackthorn’s face. “Such a prize holds value, and that we can use. It’s a shame he is not younger, we know a half fae can be of great benefit to the Court, don’t we Meliorn?”

“My lady.” Meliorn agreed. That was the reason for his pity, he saw a sort of kinship to the boy, though their blood and upbringing were so different.

“How was the rest of your journey?” the Queen inquired.

“Well enough, lovely lady, and I would love to tell you, and talk.” Sebastian promised. “But I’d prefer to do so without Shadowhunters in the room.”

Mark Blackthorn was a spot of broken wildness in the mother of pearl chamber, and Sebastian wanted him off his hands. He had been enough trouble after the children disappeared.

“Of course. Meliorn, take them to the cells and leave the boy there, then escort them to their passage home.”

Sebastian watched from the Queen’s side as his army traipsed out, the boy shoved and stumbling in front of them until Meliorn grabbed him by the arm to hold him up, face impassive.

Even as the Queen lounged, catlike and expectant, he couldn’t resist a final comment.

“That cannot have been a kind introduction to your mother’s country.”

Her laugh in response is like silver. 


	7. Sorting Out the Issue Of Nerissa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nerissa deserves better and I am not capable of doing her justice. 
> 
>  
> 
> Originally posted to, (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/140963689389/)  
> "@anon I had nearly finished a very nice in my opinion fic when this stupid computer died for no reason, so you must content yourself with this weak recreation.
> 
> The Nerissa lives and is kind of emotionally broken AU"

Once upon a time there was a lady who loved a warrior, and this was good. Their days were joyous, and their love was true. And though there was a chasm between them (for the lady was older and fairer than he who she loved, and her blood was ancient and strange) they loved each other all the same.

There was a little girl between them, and they loved her too, they loved and they loved and they loved, as all that was splendid and terrible whirled around them.

But the lady’s sister was discontent with the lady’s love, and she acted cruelly because of it. And this cruelty drove a spike between the lovers as age and species never could, and with a heavy heart the lady sent her warrior away.

She had never thought their love would last forever, she was resigned to its impermanence from the beginning. Still, she loathed to make him loathe her, as she had to do to make him leave. And contented herself only with the memories of their marriage and with the children that had come of it.

For the little girl and her brother stayed with the lady, and grew a little in her care, and she loved them truly. But as with her warrior she did not think they were hers to keep. And so when they were weaned and walking she sent them to their father’s house, to live among his people, and she mourned again for she knew the world above would not be kind to her children.

For her blood was older and colder than starlight, and her love’s was new and refined and burning with heavenly fire, and jealousy would always haunt her childrens’ steps, for they were rarer and fairer than most.

The lady shut herself away to weep over what she had lost, and hoped when she next stepped foot in the realm of men those she loved would be long dead and buried, having lived happier lives. She thought that was kinder, in it’s cruelty.

Still, she could not shut herself away entirely, for attending on the court of the fair was her birthright and her duty, and so she heard when there was a man who would hurt her children, and her warrior for loving her, and she breathed easily only when he was vanquished made sure those she loved were safe.

She saw the boy too, the stripling child who wanted to burn everything and who treated with her queen, but she did not pay him much mind. Sure, he bled of heaven and hell, but so did she. She knew a child throwing a tantrum when she saw one, for she had raised children herself, and she knew better than most that all things faded and most would be gone long before she was.

Yes, she worried of his viciousness and ingenuity, but she trusted the warrior with the safety of their children, and so she did not fret.

Her heart still cried for those she had lost, and in her grief she did not see the danger until it was too late.

* * *

 

Nerissa still had contacts among the courtiers of the Seelie. She was not naturally inclined to intrigue, at least not in recent years, but among the gentry knowing the workings of the court was as much necessity as hobby. She knew something was aflutter.

Despite this it took a summons from her queen to bring Nerissa out of her chambers, those airy rooms where she had grown tall, and kissed Andrew, and watched their children take their first steps.

She walked the halls of the hill, her feet bare and her gown thin. She wanted to to look at vulnerable as she felt. The Fair Folk felt all things strongly, and even among them Nerissa had taken her loss badly. Some said she was lucky not to have died, that the Shadowhunter had poisoned her heart, as surely as if he had forced holy water down her throat.

Few said it in her presence.

There were throngs gathering around the hall of the Seelie Queen and they parted for Nerissa like whispering willows before the storm. She wondered if she should stop and listen to their talk, but an order from the Queen was not to be taken lightly, and so she pushed ahead.

The first thing she saw was Andrew.

He was older, but age alone could not have stopped her from recognizing him, she thought she would know him even when he was ashes on the wind. It was his eyes that stopped her short, feet away from him, seconds away from pulling him into her arms, regardless of those watching. They were not the eyes she knew.

“Andrew.”

“My love.” he said but his eyes were cold and dark where once they had been familiar.

Nerissa shook her head. “You are not who I have loved.” she said, horror struck. He was not an illusion, she would have recognized one. No magic touched him and no magic could have replicated him so completely.

The crowds, gentry and other Shadowhunters in red with black eyes like Andrew’s, leaned forward. Nerissa turned to her queen, sitting on a throne with the boy Sebastian leaning against her chair, and thought to ask what bitter mockery, what dark magic it was in front of her, and saw the figure at her queen’s feet.

A man, a boy, young and dressed in a Shadowhunter’s wear. His hair was not as cloud fine as hers and fair as hers, but it was light and curled and his back was slim.

Nerissa rushed to him, ignoring as else, and knelt to check his pulse, look at his face, where bruises bloomed around closed eyes.

The Seelie Queen was not a large woman, but she loomed like a giant from Nerissa’s vantage point, sitting on the floor, cradling her son, who she had not seen since her was small enough to carry in her arms.

A queen was not meant to be gentle, and the Seelie Queen was not, but Nerissa had also found favour with her, and had never thought of her as unfair. She did not look half as forgiving with Sebastian Morgenstern at her side.

Andrew approached her, with comforting hands and malign intent, and Nerissa snapped, “Stay back!”, felt anger and power flare in her voice for the first time in years. She stroked her Mark’s hair, and looked at her queen.

“My lady, what is the meaning of this? Why is my child hurt in your hall, when my loyalty to you is true?”

The Queen smiled, “You sent your child to be a Shadowhunter, did you not, Nerissa? Ask of yourself what we wage against Shadowhunters now.”

“I heard you rally troops, and that is your right as Queen. But I have heard of no battles, no declarations. There is no war but I find my Andrew ensorcelled and my son injured. What is this, what has been done to them?”

Sebastian spoke. “The angel’s blood in your Blackthorn’s veins has been changed, lady.” His voice dripped with venom. “He is beyond all hope, I must admit. If I had known he belonged to one of my lady’s nobles, perhaps I would have spared him and brought him back to you alive.” He paused, shrugged, then added, “Perhaps, but probably not.”

Nerissa’s breath caught. He was as good as dead then, Andrew who she had loved. He had not lived a long life and passed easily, he had been hurt and changed at the hands of a young warlord. She wanted to tear at her hair and weep, she wanted to die, but she had Mark to think of. For the second time, her children kept her from truest sorrow.

Silariel laughed, sweet as a child. “You have been gone from us too long, Nerissa. Sebastian Morgenstern went to take an Institute, and found your son there. He brought him back to me, knowing he was of Seelie blood. You should not blame him for roughness, he did not know the child’s mother was waiting for him here. The Shadowhunters think you dead, after all.”

The hall was silent, all watching carefully. Nerissa thought there was some sympathy there, but it was for her, not her Andrew, not her Mark. She was theirs, they were not.

“My daughter.” she said slowly. “My Helen. Was she there as well?” Was she among the dead, she thought, or would she slip out of a shadow any minute, her eyes like pits?

Sebastian shook his head and Andrew spoke up from behind her. “Our princess dwells in Idris, Rissa. She is safe, for now.” Nerissa would not, could not, look at him, but she thought he was smiling.

“Small comfort that is.” Sebastian quipped.

Nerissa squared her shoulders. “I cannot tell my Queen where she should put our faith. But this seems ill advised, to side against the Shadowhunters.”

“I take the side victorious.” the Queen said. “You would do well to remember that. Mourn your daughter now, if you must, Nerissa, for I am not sure the Shadowhunters have much longer left. And think on what has brought your family, once so illustrious, to this point.”

Nerissa felt herself shake. Her Helen, so small with eyes like the sea, whose first words had been Mama, in English because that was what Andrew spoke. Her Helen who she had kissed a hundred times before leaving her for Andrew, Andrew who had not been able to protect himself or their babies.

She could not afford to quiver like a girl, she had to think. Perhaps, if she was very clever and willing to do anything, there was a way out of this.

“I will take my son then.” she said, placing Mark’s head back on the cool floor and standing, tall and highborn, daring them to contradict her.

“You will not.” the Seelie Queen said, almost regretful. “I cannot have a Shadowhunter in my court. I would give him to Gwyn.”

The Wild Hunt was not a place of softness. Gwyn son of Nudd was perhaps as old as Faerie itself, and he was beholden to none. The gentleness of the civilized world was not to be found among the Hunters, who roamed far afield and wandered the stars, austere and feral.

She could not imagine Mark there. Nerissa fell back to her knees, begging.

“My lady, please. I served as your handmaiden when I was young, and I have never knowingly given you reason to doubt me. Please, please, do not do this.”

“My mind is made, that I promise.”

Nerissa felt her heart plummet, helplessness take over dawning hope. She hadn’t been able to save her love for Andrew, she hadn’t been able to rescue her children. Faerie before her, almost unlimited potential, a lifetime of joy and delight and complexity, and all of it was ashes if she could not have what she truly wanted.

Fighting had stopped looking like an attractive option years ago.

Her voice was tight and low with pain. “Let me take him and treat his wounds then, and keep him until Gwyn can come.”

The Seelie Queen tilted her head and thought for a moment, looked at the silent masses of faerie that watched Nerissa with both distaste and pity. “I will give you that, Nerissa,” she decided, “You may have care of the boy until we can reach the Wild Hunt. But Meliorn will accompany you and stay with you to see that you do not do anything rash.”

She had not expected any better, and she did not expect to be able to escape with the Queen’s most trusted knight there. Meliorn loved their lady, for she showed them kindness where few had, and although Nerissa usually felt sorry for him, for his place in a court that mocked him for his parentage, she knew as well as any that he could be cold.

Meliorn stepped forward as if to pick Mark up, but Nerissa bent and with some effort and more magic, managed to heave her child up herself. He was heavy in her arms, and tall, too tall, but she swore none would carry him but her.

Andrew-not-Andrew gave her a wicked smile and a wave on the way out and she resisted the urge to cry or strike him down of both. She had to think of Mark.

The crowds parted before her again, and she kept her face stony, so none would see her weakness and mock her for it. She knew how Faerie became vicious, and when they could be forgiving.

She put him in her bed, and sent Meliorn to stand by the door.

She healed his bruises and cuts, and thanked heavens she was there to protect him from whatever ever else her queen and the Morgenstern boy could have done. And she made sure he slept, because it was better for both of them if he did not see her, if he awoke only in Gwyn’s custody.

She did not know if she could bear hearing his voice, and she did not want to give him false hope, and she knew as any faerie did when kindness could be cruelty and cruelty kindness.

If she could speak to Gwyn she could convince him to be gentle with Mark, to keep him safe from harm, she was sure of that. It was the smallest of mercies, the meekest of consolations.

 

* * *

 

She could hear the whispers, that Lady Nerissa had once been great, but a Shadowhunter had brought her low, that now she was not meant for joy. Perhaps they were right.


	8. Magnus and the Squad Play Politics, Get Adopted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to, (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/141739118594/)
> 
> "I have no idea what day it is anymore but accept this humble bit of Downworlder friendship. Featuring my favorite Downworlder team ever."

“Bite me.” Maia said, as they strolled down the streets of the Glass City. On the other side of Magnus, Lily seemed to be considering it.

A slanted glance and the stares of the Nephilim around them convinced her that lunging over Magnus and tackling Maia to the ground would not end well in the middle of all Shadowhunterdom and she settled for a snarling smile.

Magnus patted her arm sympathetically. “We’re just saying Maia, when you say you think of Luke as a father figure it’s hard not say, ‘Well who doesn’t?’ Especially when you’re the one who keeps leaving teenage werewolves with him. You are not a child here Maia, you are a child purveyor. We didn’t mean to laugh.”

“I meant to laugh.” Lily promised. “I really, really did.”

“You’re terrible.”

Magnus shrugged. “Well, that I can’t deny. Come along now, we have a Council to try to moderate. It may be a Sisyphean task but it is ours.” He flourished a hand and watched a group of Shadowhunter children piled into an alley gasp.

Lilly pulled a face that involved a furrowed brow, bared teeth, and a nose wrinkled in disgust. Magnus sympathized. He liked having Lily as representative when she sat in the vampire seat, but she didn’t quite have the patience for it and whenever she had to fill in the other Downwolders complained that there were too many Americans on the Council.

“I hate this country.”

“In hindsight,” Magnus admitted, “Perhaps walking to the Gard in broad daylight together was not the best idea. Think of it as an extension of our duty. Slowly but surely we teach the Nephilim not to pull their children tightly to their bosoms as Downworlders pass.”

“We are failing then.” Lily observed, looking around them. There was a not insignificant amount of bosom clutching and weapons holding. Nephilim and their swords, like six year olds and teddy bears.

The guards of the Gard, and wasn’t that a stupid phrase, let them through, and Magnus kept talking. “It’s a process, Lily. I mean, look at where we are!”

“A giant stupid stone building about to fight with a bunch of Shadowhunters who are determined to make stupid choices no matter what we say?”

Maia laughed.

Magnus nodded. “Exactly. Three years ago we wouldn’t have even had a chance to unsuccessfully deter them from making stupid choices. We’ve come so far.”

“And in the end it doesn’t even matter.” Maia muttered.

“Be more optimistic.” Magnus scolded. “We have a long day of politics ahead of us.”

“Do you want to call Luke for moral support and fatherly advice first?” Lily said to Maia with a wicked grin.

Maia crossed her arms. “I hate you both.” She said shortly, before lengthening her stride to walk ahead of them into the Council chamber.

“What are you getting him for father’s day?” Lily called after her.

* * *

 

Council work was boring as ever. No wonder Shadowhunters were humourless bastards, if they had to deal with all this. Warlock politics tended to be kind of vague, you declared your intentions, and if someone showed up to tell you no you either fought them or gave in. Magnus had become High Warlock of Brooklyn by looking at Brooklyn, determining he was the most powerful there, and then putting it on his business cards. Faerie politics were like a game, all giggles and casual violence, vampire politics were literally bloodthirsty, and werewolf politics were fastpaced. Shadowhunter politics involved a lot of Law and Righteousness and Heavenly Mandate, Magnus found himself missing the ‘fight me’ sentiments and local community of the Downworlders.

Besides, most of the matters discussed were faerie matters and the rest of the Shaodwhunters had made it very clear that Magnus’s opinion on that matter was no longer appreciated. He made a regular complaint, but other than that he found himself too tired to argue every matter. Babies, it seemed, very much sapped your righteous youthful zeal. He barely argued with anyone since Max had arrived.

Maia, on the other hand, was still unbroken by the demands of adulthood. After a half and hour of debating how to best handle the matter of faeries found gathering in large groups, Maia stood.

“If I may, I have something to say.” she said.

Jia Penhallow waved a hand. She looked as tired as Magnus felt. His makeup was probably just better, perhaps he ought to send some to her for Christmas. “Continue, Representative Roberts.”

“When I was younger, still a new werewolf, a man I respect deeply and see as something of a father figure,” Maia took a second to send a piercing glare at Lily. Lily looked like she was about to start laughing. Magnus was already holding back an inappropriate grin. “Told me that the purpose of a pack was to give werewolves a sense of community, as well as protection. We all need people around us, friends, and family. You cannot possibly expect the faeries not to interact with each other, especially since few other Downworlders are willing to now. They need a sense of community as much as everyone else. I understand your concern but this strikes me as a non matter.”

Various Shadowhunters grumbled and looked like they were about to register objections, but Jia’s nod of recognition and surprisingly firm look kept anyone from acting out. “Thank you, Representative Roberts. You are always a voice of reason here.”

Magnus sort of loved Jia sometimes. Of course it couldn’t last long and he closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable Shadowhunter diatribe on why faeries couldn’t be trusted, were all evil, burn their crops and salt their earth, ect, ect.

“Yes, Representative Chen?” Jia said instead and Magnus looked over to see Lily smiling faintly and standing on the front of her feet to get that extra millimeter of height. She looked professional and poised. She looked like she was about to do something terrible.

“I agree with Representative Roberts.” Lily smiled, and Magnus was getting worried. “Luke Garroway, former Council member, who I really do see as a role model, arguably a parental substitute, told me at his wedding that he hoped all Downworlders could live could live in peace. That doesn’t exclude the faeries. Now I’ve dealt with enough of them and their mischief to not like them, but asking them not to move in groups is rather moronic. They’re chattering folk, and, unlike Garroway, a veritable font of paternal wisdom, I’d rather they talk to each other rather than me.”

Maia’s head hit the table with a thump. Magnus wanted to cry. Lily had tried her hardest, but even a Shadowhunter could still see how forced what she had just said was. She wasn’t one for giving gentle erudite compliments. The tone of the room had turned from outrage to confusion.

As Jia and her fellows blinked, Magnus raised a hand and didn’t wait to be called upon. “I too, feel like trying to limit faerie gatherings is a stupid choice on multiple accounts. They’ll just grow more resentful of you and start meeting in secret. Better they feel forgiven and are out in the open.” Magnus paused, rallied his courage and wit, and leaned back a little. “I may be old but in my wild youth a few years ago I met a werewolf who had once been a Shadowhunter. He is now a hero of renown, but at the time he would have been hated, would have been seen as a traitor and disgrace, both for his actions as a Shadowhunter and his existence as a Downworlder. Shadowhunters are not always right. In our anger we all make mistakes and I have been very vocal about my distaste for the Cold Peace since I believe it to be one of those mistakes. If in your hatred you had killed Luke Garroway all those years ago, I do not think any of us would be alive today, and many people, myself included, would have been deprived of a man who serves as a mentor and father to us, who coaches us through the trials of growing up, who gives us sage advice. One life lesson Luke, who I do see as something of a non demonic murderous father, has taught me is this, we are not defined by our pasts, we can always make up for our mistakes, and Shadowhunter hate often comes back to bite them.”

Magnus sat. The Shadowhunters stared. Magnus wondered why he hadn’t thought of utter ridiculousness as a stalling tactic before this. He’d have to thank Lily later. He ventured a look at Maia, who mouthed ‘I hate you’.

“Thank you for those heartfelt words.” Jia said slowly. “I think on that note the Council is probably ready to vote.”

No one seemed ready to argue.

* * *

 

The New York Institute Christmas party had been Clary and Alec’s idea. Sure, it had been hard to transform the Sanctuary into a Downworlder friendly party room, but as Magnus watched the New York wolf pack and Conclave, scattered with the few vampires Lily had allowed to attend and a handful of warlocks Magnus had invited, mingle, he thought it was worth it. Sure, it was cramped, and the small homogeneous cliques were already forming as the various groups clumped up, but it was still a sight to bring a tear to Magnus’s eye.

He handed Max off to Alec, the baby was the center of attention and Magnus needed to take a break before he started insisting everyone bathe in disinfectant before coming near him, and moved over to the depleted punch table. Next year they’d need better snacks.

A hand tapped him on the shoulder and Magnus spun, his brocade coat whirling out around him with a satisfying swoosh.

Luke Garroway stood before him, dark skin and eyes against red flannel, as always casually good looking in a way Magnus might have admired if he wasn’t so thoroughly taken. “Garroway.” Magnus said with a smile. “Clary said you might come. Where’s your wife? I’m always surprised to see you two apart.”

“Jocelyn is over playing with your baby.” Luke replied, “I needed to talk to you.”

“Talk away.” Magnus replied, feeling punch drunk on the atmosphere of camaraderie.

“Maia told me about something you said a few weeks ago.” Luke said solemnly. “And I want you to know Magnus, I’m always here for you if you feel like you need an adult in your life.”

Maia. Maia was evil. Maia was terrible. Maia deserved some sort of prize. But Magnus was better than her.

“You know I had a very difficult childhood.” Magnus said, mournful. “I’ve always been ashamed to admit I saw you as a role model.”

Luke, sweet, gentle, loving, Luke, patted Magnus’s shoulder. “I know, son.” he said, eyes boring into Magnus’s. “I’m here for you. We can talk later, I should probably get back to Jocelyn.”

With that he left, pulling out of the conversation before Magnus could muster the mind to retaliate. Werewolves, he decided, were underrated in sheer meanness. They were as conniving and amoral as vampires. Magnus felt victimized.

As he swung around to find someone who wasn’t conspiring against him he saw Lily looking similarly traumatized on the other side of the room. Going to comfort her Magnus passed Alec and Max and their crowd of admirers and heard clearly Alec’s own voice saying, “Is that your Grandpa Luke Max? Are those his glasses? Let go of his glasses, Max.”

Magnus realized too late that he was never going to to hear the end of it.


	9. More Nerissa-y Goodness, Now Featuring Kieran

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/141762344104/)
> 
> "Please, do write more Nerissa sometime? Whatever you'd like to write :)  
> Anonymous  
> (I hope this works! I’ve been tossing it around for a while.)"

No one liked the Seelie lady, but no one really liked Kieran either. Oh, his father did (Papa, he called him in secret, a family name for a family man, while father was for the king.) but his father’s children did not, because they thought he got too much of the King’s attentions simply for being alone and young. And the gentry did not because they respected blood and strength, and Kieran’s blood was nixie blood, base and lowly, and he was not old enough to show them strength yet.

His brothers said he was too gentle, that he watched the wild, joyous turn of the court and did not see the bone underneath, that he saw the flowers but not the thorns. His sister said he wanted too much, that his ambition outstripped all their brothers, for Kieran wanted love and that was far rarer than power or beauty or truth. Father said he must watch his tongue and guard his heart, for he had an impulsive one and passion must be met with mindfulness.

The Seelie Lady, was of the fairer court, was soft and cold and deceptive. She, like all Seelies wore a pretty face and wanted and wanted and wanted. They loved rarely, soft and sweet and sickly, and they held knives behind their backs rather than making their intentions clear like honest faeries. Theirs was a world of pale flowers and butterflies, cold and lovely. And Lady Nerissa was not only Seelie but the highest of the high, one of their most well blooded gentry. She was tall and slim and tow headed and sent among them by her Queen to dwell like a snake among the birds, or that was what others reported.

Kieran thought she looked sad.

They whispered other things too, that she had fallen in love with a mortal man, one of the Shadowhunters, who Kieran heard of rarely but never in kind tones. Her Queen had sent her to the Unseelie not only as a sign of peace, her most well born of princesses as a diplomat, but also as a sign of disfavour, a punishment for dalliances poorly handled and love badly given.

The Seelie gentry, Kieran knew, thought of love differently than most faeries did. It was not a thing to be taken lightly, rather it was both a fatal flaw and a most prized bauble. A normal Seelie faerie, like Kieran’s mother, would love deeply, truly, kindly, too easily and too givingly, or so his brothers said, and that was why Kieran’s mother had died, for the Seelie’s love could destroy them, they were so fragile. But the Seelie gentry scorned this weakness, or tried to, and thus the Lady Nerissa’s entanglement and subsequent mourning was seen as something of a disgrace.

Perhaps that was why he couldn’t help but be interested in her. She was like his mother was, but so much more noble. She wore the same sorrow his mother probably had before she died, but she also walked among the Unseelie gentry unafraid, because they could not touch her. She had power, they said, but she did not wield it lightly. She’d had love but she spoke of it no longer. Kieran was interested.

Besides, few paid attention to the King’s youngest son as long as he stayed out of the way, and no one but his brothers or sisters dared scold him, not for something as small as following.

* * *

 

“What are you doing, little prince?” Nerissa asked him on the seventh day of watching her. The revels spun in front of them, but Kieran had gone to sit by her.

“No one has come to take me to bed, they never do, but I am not allowed to dance or join the feast.” Kieran answered. Even when it was only the Unseelie court revels were wild and his father would have words with any who put Kieran in danger, so Kieran had learned not to get too close lest the others resent him for ruining the fun and make his life hard. He did not want to invoke his older brothers’ ire by upsetting one of their friends or courtiers.

“It is a sad time when no one is willing to take a child to bed.” Nerissa observed. “Where is your mother, little prince?”

Kieran kicked his feet, felt his heels hit the hard stone of the seat carved deep into the walls of the Unseelie Court. “Dead.”

“Then that is another sad thing. You have been following me for a while.” Nerissa said, in the tone of a statement.

“I have seen you around a lot.” Kieran deflected, but it was a childish effort.

Nerissa smiled like someone who was used to seeing gentry children aping their elders. “No, little prince, I think you have dogged my footsteps too much for it to be an accident, though you are welcome to tell me truthfully if I am wrong.”

Kieran held his tongue.

The Seelie Lady smiled again, still sad, maybe even sadder than usual. “Then why do you follow me? Do you seek a boon or has one of your noble brothers put you up to it? Has your fair sister?”

“I did it on my own.” Kieran said quickly, not wanting to get the others involved. “I wanted to know.”

“So I hoped. I mean it kindly, but if you were the best spy they could send after me, little prince, I am very disappointed. What did you seek to learn?”

Kieran struggled for words that were right, that were gentry. “I heard a lot about you, and it seemed strange. I wanted to know what they meant.”

Nerissa tilted her head. “How old are you, child?”

Kieran kicked the seat again. “I have grown to be eight years of age.” he said softly. He wanted to leave this sad lady but he knew it would be rude, and he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Besides, he did want to understand her.

“I had a child once.” Nerissa said, and this Kieran did not know. “He would be close to your age, perhaps older.”

Kieran had heard nothing of a child before, not a hint or a whisper. “What happened to him?”

“He lives elsewhere now.” Nerissa confided. “With his sister. I thought I could miss him forever and a day, until my queen bade me to dry my tears and sent me here.”

Kieran felt like she shouldn’t be telling him this, and he said so.

Nerissa dismissed it. “I have no need for shame. This is my secret but it is not a closely guarded one, little prince, for what else have I to lose?”

He considered this, Nerissa’s story and her sadness. “I am sorry you miss your son.” Kieran said as gently as possible.

“I am glad you are so touched, but you should not be sorry for me, little prince, for I am not sorry for myself.”

Kieran looked at his father, pale and tall on his throne, and his brothers scattered about. Papa met his gaze for a second and his cold eyes softened. His father gave Kieran courage. “Why not?”

Nerissa leaned in as if to tell Kieran a secret. “Love is a gift, little prince. You should not waste it, and if it passes you should rejoice that you had it all, otherwise you risk losing yourself.”

“My Papa says love is power, for it makes you feel strongly, and it makes you strong.” Kieran confided, feeling himself slip into the words of family with her, though he shouldn’t.

“Your papa and I may disagree on that. But who agrees on what love is?” Nerissa placed a pale hand on his head, not to mock his hair or pull on it like the others, but simply to punctuate what she was saying. Her hand was cold, but comforting. Nerissa regarded him again. “You’re tired.” she stated.

“No one has sent me to bed yet.” Kieran said defensively.

Nerissa pulled her hands back into her lap. “As a mother, little prince, let me tell you go to bed.”

Kieran did.


	10. Belle Cour (Camille Backstory)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/148315496984/belle-cour

The first thing Camille takes for herself is her name. Oh, she’s been given things before, scraps of bread, pennies, ribbons, she’s been given things ever since she was old enough to flutter her lashes and smile her prettiest smile. But a name is something that cannot be handed out like a party favor, and she is determined to make it for herself before one is bestowed on her, through marriage or elsewise. All her mother had left her was a first name, pretty as it is, and a last one is simply a must.

She likes the ringing sound of the first syllable, and she likes the husky cough of the second. It sounds lovely, and old. It sounds respectable, Norman, even. French is a language of class and Molly swears it means Beautiful court. That is a name that a person can make a life out of. An apprenticeship with a seamstress, a job making dresses as silky rich as her new name, wealth and prestige and elegance.

London is full of pretty girls, but none of them have names like hers.

* * *

 

The second thing she takes is a chance.

They say she’s too pretty for stitching seams, and Camille can’t help but agree. They say there are places for beautiful girls- beautiful women- with wit and gentility. Everyone knows the king is a philanderer, with a mistress for every day of the week and god, are they beautiful, decked out in jewels, set up for life even after they’re discarded. It’s a step up, a cheat code, for the willing.

Camille is not unwilling. Unwilling girls never make it off the streets.

She goes to parties on the arm of men of ambition. They’re tasteless affairs, hidden in the back rooms of theaters, where dukes and earls consort with common actors and worse, actresses. Not that Camille can say she’s much better, trying to catch the eye of some royal favorite with jests as ribald as the actors’ around her.

It’s at some awful gambling party that she meets De Quincey. He has fair hair, and a nice smile, and makes no comment on her dark looks, the ones that make lesser men quote trite lines about Neapolitan beauties. His manners are better than any man’s, at least at first.

* * *

 

The third thing Camille Belcourt takes is a life. She’s just a beggar woman, loitering outside the churchyard, and she’s dead too fast to scream.

“I thought your name quite charming.” De Quincey admits later, somewhere in between blood letting and midnight tea. He’s dripping red and Camille covers her nose with a spotless handkerchief. There’s a difference between hunger and bloodlust. One is unfortunate biology, the other is inexcusably impolite.

Vampirism is elegant, if it’s done right. It’s certainly more permanent than any king’s favour. She is now as indelible as good dye on silk, shiningly immortal like a gem. Camille adjusts.

* * *

 

The fourth and fifth things she takes are Walker and Archer. Their lives and minds and wills subsume to her own, which she finds quite pleasing. The sixth thing is Ralf and he’s so sweet and soft and kind, high bred among werewolves (well pedigreed) and moneyed in a quiet, tasteful way. He has a little brother, unshakable convictions, and a sense of duty like iron. He worships her. Camille has never wanted anything so domestic since she was a little girl whose idea of grandeur was an apprenticeship with a linen draper.

* * *

 

The seventh thing is Magnus. She cannot keep him. 

* * *

 

The eighth thing, (the eighth important thing, all those little lives and petty squabbles in between don’t count) is the New York Coven. Following Magnus to New York had been a lark, a way to push back at him for his callous betrayal and a way to flee from the memories of London. The coven is poorly run, and it’s easy to climb the ranks and push the leader off the top of the ladder. New York is darling, full of sights and sounds and short dresses, and clever little hats. Camille immerses herself in the glimmer, the shine, and blows a kiss to Magnus the first time they meet on the street.


	11. Lydia and Clary Cousin Bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/145884376289

The fourth time Lydia woke up she found the infirmary had developed an infestation of redheads.

Clary Fairchild was there, with an older woman who must have been Jocelyn Fairchild. Elusive Jocelyn who married a monster and then brought him to his knees. Lydia had heard she was awake, but the Fairchilds had been busy during Lydia’s past few bouts of consciousness.

Jocelyn was sitting near a chest of old medicines from Idris that healed anything runes would not, mixing up something with an expert hand. Clary watched in fascination, and Lydia managed to sit up before either noticed her.

“Clary.” Jocelyn said, nudging her daughter gently. She had a soft voice that reminded Lydia of her own mother, dead years ago.

Clary spun in her seat, brilliant hair twisting with her. “Lydia! You’re awake again.”

Lydia nodded. The headache from earlier was gone, and the pain in her abdomen had dulled, but there was an uncomfortable sensation of dryness in her mouth. She reached for the water on the bedside table and found it uncomfortably room temperature.

“How long…?” Lydia asked.

“Just a few hours.” Clary assured her. “Magnus said your body needed a little more rest and we should let you be.”

The soft afternoon sunlight outside the stained glass windows proved Clary true. Lydia breathed a sigh of relief and tried to sit up as straight as possible in a hospital bed. Shoulders back, head held up high. She could feel her hair ruching up on her head, her usually neat braids ruined by days spent in bed. They weren’t ideal circumstances for looking professional.

“You must be Jocelyn Fairchild.” Lydia said firmly. “I’m Lydia Branwell.”

“I am she.” Jocelyn confirmed, stepping closer, her bowl of green herbal muck still in her hands. “Clary told me about a Lydia, but she didn’t mention you were a Branwell. Are you descended from Theodore Branwell, younger brother of Henry?”

“Yes.” Lydia said, carefully not looking at Clary. “We’re distant cousins, I know.”

“It’s kind of cool.” Clary added. “I’ve never had any kind of cousins before, even distant ones.” Clary looked smaller next to her mother, younger and more vulnerable. Lydia suspected anyone would look vulnerable next to Jocelyn, but Clary almost looked like she’d been crying.

“I remember your mother, I think.” Jocelyn said. “Margaret Branwell?”

“Yes.” Lydia said, and added before the inevitable question could come. “She’s dead.”

“I’m very sorry.” Jocelyn said. Lydia didn’t even resent the sympathy, like she sometimes did. It felt more real, coming from someone who might have known her mother.

“She died in battle.” Lydia told her, and that was all that needed to be said for a Shadowhunter. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Downstairs.” Jocelyn said. “Maryse is dealing with Clave envoys, but I needed a potion for my balance. A few weeks in a coma really throws you off. I should probably get back down.”

“I should be there-” Lydia began, but Jocelyn cut her off.

“You’re sick.”

Lydia pursed her lips. “I’m injured in the line of duty. I need to present a report to the Clave.”

“I think they have a copy of your statement from earlier.” Jocelyn said, wavering.

Clary crossed her arms, red rimmed eyes solid. It seemed the stubborness didn’t come from her mother, then. “The Silent Brothers said you need to stay off your feet or you could damage your other kidney. My silly mundane schooling taught me that that would be bad. If you die now, everyone will be upset.”

Sure enough, the pain in Lydia’s gut was growing the longer she stayed up. She relented and eased back into her pillows. They were comfortably cool.

Jocelyn grimaced at the bowl in her hand and downed it. “Is there anything you want me to tell the Clave?” she said kindly.

“Tell them Hodge Starkweather’s betrayal was a surprise to us all, and his methods were brutal.” Lydia said. Jocelyn nodded, and there was a touch of sorrow on her face. Lydia had forgotten she would have known Starkweather. She would have known all of them.

Jocelyn looked poised to step back out, a polite smile and a steely demeanor both in place, when Clary moved to follow her. Jocelyn’s eyes flickered.

“Clary, could you stay with Lydia? I think she could use the company.”

“Mom.” Clary protested. “Don’t think you can try to get rid of me again, they need me there.”

Jocelyn looked unconvinced. “Alec can tell the story as well as you can. Besides, it would be rude to leave your cousin alone.”

Lydia was not getting involved in a mother daughter argument. She had no experience with them.

“For me?” Jocelyn said, and Clary buckled.

“Yeah, fine, if Lydia doesn’t mind. Just promise to tell me everything.” Clary said, giving Lydia a hopeful glance.

“I really have no opinions.” Lydia said, to Clary’s dismay.

Jocelyn smiled and hugged her daughter. “Thank you. I promise I’ll fill you in, but I don’t want you to be there for some of this. The Clave can be… unkind.”

Jocelyn left and Clary subsided to a chair. “How are you feeling?” she asked Lydia, several minutes too late. Lydia wasn’t exactly in a place to judge bedside manners though.

“Fine. Better, I mean, my head hurts less.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“Is there anything I can get you?”

“No, thank you.”

“Oh. Okay.”

After a few minutes Clary pulled a thick book, large sized like a tome of spells, out of her messenger bag and started flipping through it.

Lydia didn’t resist her curiosity for long. There wasn’t much else to do but think or interact with Clary.

“What’s that? The Book Of White?” They’d mentioned they’d found it, when she first woke up and had to be interrogated and debriefed.

“Hmm?” Clary looked up. “Sketchbook. Magnus has the Book of the White. Apparently Shadowhunters aren’t to be trusted with it.” She smiled. “Can’t really blame him, I guess.”

Given the Starkweather situation, Lydia couldn’t really argue. But faction affiliation required her to at least make an effort. “The Clave has often safeguarded precious objects.”

“Like the Mortal Cup?”

Lydia blinked. “I can see why your mother didn’t want you talking to the Clave officials.”

Clary stood and walked closer to the bed. Her eyes were still puffy, but she was smiling more confidently now. “What are you, chopped liver?”

“I’m not sure what I am, after I let the Mortal Cup be taken by an agent of Valentine.” Lydia admitted. Clary perched on the edge of her bed, like Lydia might lash out and bite her.

“They couldn’t say that was your fault! Hodge tricked everyone.”

Lydia tried to shrug and was foiled by her pillows. “The Law is hard, but it is the law.”

Clary sniffed, not like she was going to cry but like she was mortally offended. “That’s a really stupid rule. There’s such a thing as exonerating circumstances.”

“Not when the fate of the world is at stake.” Lydia told her. The Law was supposed to be infallible.

“Like, I said, stupid.” Clary fidgeted. “Besides, Valentine made a lot of people join him, or do things they didn’t want to do.”

“Jace Wayland.” Lydia guessed. Clary nodded.

Lydia hadn’t gotten a very sensible explantion of what had happened with Mr. Wayland/Morgenstern/Fairchild, but she knew it was bad. That was what Clary had clearly been crying about then.

“Jace is a very talented young Shadowhunter, with a long record. I may not agree with his methods, or yours, but he’s always impressed the Clave before. I’m sure they’ll understand if he was directly under duress.” Lydia stretched to touch Clary’s leg, the only part of her that was reachable without sitting up. “Hopefully he’ll be fine.”

“Thanks.” Clary said, looking more confused than reassured. “How about you? Do I need to get a Silent Brother again?”

Lydia repressed a shudder. She had worked closely with Silent Brothers over the years but they were still unnerving. “No! I’m fine.” Over Clary’s muted gigles she said, “How about you show me your sketchbook? There’s not a lot to do here.”

“Sure.” Clary agreed, and moved up to lie next to Lydia on the bed. “I can’t promise it will be interesting though.”

It was better than Lydia had expected, a lot better. She’d seen a few anxious doodles when she was going through Clary’s room in the Institute, but they were much better up close.

There were a few landscapes, stately trees and mountains. A handful of city scenes with cars and blurs of pedestrians. But it was people where Clary’s talent really shone. Near the front were pictures of the vampire, Simon, and another girl with curly hair. Later on she’d done pictures of demons, good enough that Lydia could identify them at a glance. There were sketches of runes, curling lines that really shouldn’t be on paper. There was a reason books of the grey were heavily enchanted for safety. There was a portrait of Isabelle Lightwood, her hair falling in her face and her lipstick shining, and one of Valentine as hard eyed and menacing as any demon.

And there were pictures of Jace. His face, his stance, his rune marked arms. Clary flipped quickly through those, maybe not wanting to be reminded of her missing brother.

The last few pages were frantic. Sketches of faces and monsters leapt off the page. Lydia stopped Clary’s hand so she could look closer at one picture in particular.

It was her, her hair up, wearing her doomed wedding gown. She was smiling and it made her nose seem to tilt up, a more youthful, mischievous look than Lydia normally would have assigned to herself.

“Sorry.” Clary said. “I was just thinking of everything over the past few days, and it helps me to draw it. And you really did look nice in your dress.”

“Thanks.” Lydia said. “I don’t mind, it’s just, you’re really good at this.” Lydia had only ever been good at being a Shadowhunter. The arts were an alien world to her.

Clary flipped to a fresh page. “It’s not hard. You just have to practice a lot, and love doing it.” She wriggled until she could get to her messenger bag and pulled out a pencil.

Lydia shied away. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m not going to make you.” Clary said. “But it would be something to do, you know? The Silent Brothers said you might be in bed for a while until they could make sure all your organs are in the right places.”

“How about you draw.” Lydia said. “At least until your mother gets back. I’ll watch.”

Clary nodded, agreeable to this compromise in the face of boredom, and Lydia snuggled under the sheets. Clary was comfortably warm and made little humming sounds as she drew. Lydia hadn’t been in a bed with anyone since John, but this reminded her more of being ten, and snuggling up with friends on long nights. It felt like a cousin might.

On the paper Isabelle Lightwood was slowly coalescing, or a girl with Isabelle Lightwood’s face was. Lydia didn’t think Izzy had ever worn thick framed glasses. When she was done Clary held the picture up for inspection.

“It’s good.” Lydia said. “Very good.”

“Sure you don’t want to try?” Clary asked.

Lydia opened her mouth to say she didn’t, then changed her mind. “If you don’t mind, I guess I could try. But you’ll have to help me sit up.”

Clary put an arm around Lydia’s shoulders. “What else are cousins for?"


	12. Lydia Branwell and John Monterverde Are Adorable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/145769104704/redvelvetrose1742-guys-you-think-im-joking-but)

“We should get married.” Lydia said, as they cleaned up the last of the vampires. 

John nodded absently. “That’s probably a good idea, fiancee of mine.”

Lydia hid a smile in her blood stained sleeve. It had a joke between the two of them, ever since John had proposed in the middle of a strategy meeting. Some of their colleagues might tease more meanheartedly, but there was nothing but affection in the ribbing between the lovebirds. 

“I think that’s all.” Lydia said, looking around them, at the carnage spread out on the dusty wood floors. “Think we should find the others?”

John nudged an arm, formerly belonging to a slim girl of perhaps twenty three in a blood stained sundress. Lydia could see the rest of her body across the room. This not-quite-clan had done a number on some vacationers. Shadowhunters were used to gore, but the sheer brutality was impressive even to Lydia. 

Fledglings, blood mad and confused. They couldn’t help themselves, but that didn’t mean they didn’t need to be dealt with. Lydia would have to talk to local head vampire again, there were clearly some renegades in her territory and this trouble needed to stop. They’d had three pockets of fledglings in the last few months alone. 

Lydia and John couldn’t very well take over the Lisbon Institute if they couldn’t manage the local countryside. 

“I think we should check the attic.” John said. “Make sure there aren’t any clues as to the culprit we missed.”

“Avoid our lovely coworkers for another few minutes?” Lydia asked. She didn’t mind them, most of the time, but they’d been impossible since the engagement. 

“No comment.” John grinned.

The attic was much less bloody and Lydia breathed easier without the taste of iron and rot in the back of her throat. The heat and must of the abandoned building wasn’t pleasant, but it was better than seeing corpses everywhere. 

She was clambering up the ladder, only her head poking into the darkness of the attic. John caught her chin and pulled her into a kiss. Lydia made a noise of mixed pleasure and protest, torn between flicking his forehead and sinking deeper into the situationally inappropriate kiss. She settled for pulling gently away and pulling herself fully into the attic space. 

It didn’t take long to check it. There was a pile of dust in the corner where John had stabbed a vampire earlier, some bat droppings, a few empty boxes and old newspapers. not a hint as to who was randomly draining civilians and leaving them to be buried and rise without any guidance. 

“We should go downstairs.” Lydia said, reluctantly. John agreed. 

Neither of them moved. 

A head popped up through the hatch to the attic. Joao Monteverde, one of John’s cousins, snickered. 

“Stop making time in a vampire’s attic and before we burn this place down with you two in it!” he called, and leered before disappearing. 

“Remind me why we want to be in charge of these idiots?” Lydia asked. 

“Beats me.”

They went back down to the room of viscera and vampire remains, where half the Lisbon Institute’s young people were waiting to wink suggestively at them. Later there was a wedding dress fitting.

The trials of being an heir apparent. 

Lydia wouldn’t have traded it for the world. 


	13. Helen Blackthorn Gives The Shovel Talk (But Much Nice Because It's Helen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/145380910424/you-know-what-id-love-to-see-in-writing-aside)

Kieran had managed to avoid Helen Blackthorn for a full two weeks and was hoping for three before she cornered him. 

They had somehow avoided meeting on the battlefields. Helen had been on the ground and the Wild Hunt had been in the air. He wasn’t hiding, per say. 

Then in the chaos of the Cold Peace shattering into a million poorly conceived pieces they had both been busy. Helen had reunions with family and Clave members to guilt trip. Kieran had faeries to cajole into behaving. He wasn’t good at cajoling. It had taken a while. 

But at the final peace signings in Buenos Aires, she had caught him.

The foremost Brazilian Institute was large, well appointed and mostly untouched by the fighting. With Idris in shambles it was the best choice for the peacetalks. 

The Monteverdes, Lydia and Jon, had taken over the Institute after Jon’s great uncle had died during the Dark War. They seemed a nice enough couple, for Shadowhunters. Lydia was prim and proper with blonde braids and wide human face. Jon was a little portly with dark hair and a tendency to toss Portuguese randomly into sentences. For all their relative inoffensiveness and their lack of the usual Shadowhunter disdain, Kieran would never forgive them for welcoming him into their home and then immediately throwing him into Helen Blackthorn’s arms. 

Literally. 

Apparently they’d heard some gossip and thought she could “show him to his room”. 

An eternity of darkness was too good for them. 

Helen crossed her arms as the couple of ne’erdowell busybodies left them in the stately foyer. Around them the rivers of politic flowed. Shadowhunters, warlocks, the occasional faery, all trying to work together to make a common peace. Helen smiled. 

“So, you’re the Kieran I’ve heard so much about.”

“I know not what you heard.” Kieran replied, crossing his arms to match. “But Kieran is the name I was given.”

Little dark one. His father’s idea of a joke. His father’s sense of humour was abominable. 

“Mark talks a lot about you.” Helen said, making her way out of the foyer at a loping pace. Kieran followed her, suddenly uneased. Her legs were definitely shorter than his, yet somehow he felt like he was jogging to keep up with her. The halls of the Shadowhunter Institute were winding and smelled of cold metal. 

They grew progressively less inhabited as they went along. 

“Mark talks much of many things.” Kieran said. “I have heard him say your name often. He loves you much.”

Helen’s mouth, soft and pink and just a little fuller than her brother’s, turned down. “He does love me. And I love him.”

Kieran’s sleeves swished as he walked, trying to keep pace with the surprisingly swift Helen. When she stopped suddenly, he nearly ran into her.

She turned, light as a faery full, on the balls of her feet. Her familiar eyes were accusing. “He loves you.” she said, lowly. 

The halls were empty. Kieran checked before he said, “I love him. And I cannot lie.”

Helen jabbed a finger into his chest and Kieran leaned back. His hair, already a cautious grey, darkened with shock. “Are you suggesting my brother is lying?” Helen asked. 

“I have suggested nothing, Helen Blackthorn, Mark’s sister. I only state facts. I cannot lie. I love him.” The last sentence came out urgent and heavy, words weighed down with all the meaning they held. 

“I hope you love him enough.” Helen said, leaning in, “Because people can say they love another and still hurt them dearly. I heard you hurt Mark before.”  
  
“I made a misstep.” Kieran hissed. “All has been settled and made good.”

“Yeah. So I was told.” Helen did not have her brother’s posture, there was no tint of faerie in her speech. She was all Shadowhunter and in Kieran’s mind, ‘Shadowhunter’ translated into dangerous. 

“I will not make the same mistake again.” Kieran promised. 

Helen stepped in closer. “Maybe you won’t. But there are so many other mistakes you could make. I know you had a tough childhood and stuff. But Mark has had a difficult life too. And I wasn’t there to protect him. Well, I’m here now. And I’m not letting him get hurt now that I’m here. So, you better watch yourself.”

“Noted.” Kieran said coldly, ice to cover his weakness, his fear. Not of Helen, though she was a fearsome woman. He worried, sometimes, of pushing Mark away again. Of doing something rash or reckless and injuring him, in body or in heart. It was a most terrible notion. 

“I love Mark.” Helen said. “And Mark loves you. But I can lie. And faerie, if you hurt him again, I can absolutely hide a body.”

It took Kieran a second to process the meaning behind it, layered behind human artifice. Hide a body, presumably a dead one. Presumably his. Oh. 

It was possibly the most merited death threat he’d ever received. 

“I- I understand.” Kieran said, the apple of his throat bobbing like driftwood in a storm. 

“Good.” Helen said, and reached forward to take his hands, holding them lightly in hers in a gesture of peace, of friendship. Then her forehead ruffled up like satin in a dress, concentration making more complex her lovely face. She spoke carefully with only a hint of an accent, no, less than an accent. It sounded like she was drawing words up out of her memory, to place them in Kieran’s pale hands. 

The few words of faerie translated easily, once Kieran got past the childish phrasing and heavy handed enunciation. 

_Remember my words, brother._

She used the form of brother for an inlaw. Kieran’s mouth curved, into a smirk or a smile, he wasn’t sure. 

“Mark and the others get here tomorrow.” Helen said, stepping away. “I’ll send you to him. Your room is down the hall, first to the left, if I read the plans right. It’s all a bit confusing.”  
  
“Thank you, kindly.” Kieran said, leaning up onto his tip toes to look down the hall for the room she had described. 

“I should get back to Aline and Lydia. We’re very busy, what with everything.” Helen told him. her eyes smiled when she said the name Aline. 

“What with everything.” Kieran echoed. “Fare well. Please, give my best wishes to your wife.”

“Sure.” Helen said, then hesitated. “How about you join us for dinner? Just a couple of old friends, really. Us and the Monteverdes and the Lightwood-Banes.”  
  
Kieran remembered the strange eyed quick witted warlock. He accepted without a second thought. It was either a great or a terrible political move, and Kieran couldn’t exactly disappoint anyone. 

Helen almost looked relieved as she walked away. 

Kieran felt significantly more relieved. He stepped into his room, boring, stifling, Shadowhunter standard, and collapsed against the door. 

Two weeks of mental preparation had not been early enough. 


End file.
